Chapter 3: Crown
Reanalds Mansion, Hyrule Province Princess Zelda glared across her desk at her finance minister and restrained her anger only with an effort. The mousy, bespectacled old man was a holdover from the regency government, and as such still had some illusions of authority independent from the crown. She didn't mind if her subordinates had ideas and suggestions to contribute—that and the realities of management delegation were why she kept them around. What bugged her was the way he thought he had any grounds on which to reverse her decisions or simply refuse to implement her policies. "This is the last time I shall repeat myself, Goban," Zelda's voice was icy with her anger, "You are to allocate Minister Ashei any and all funds she requires for the training and equipping of new troops." "And I must tell you, Your Majesty," the diminutive little fellow was nearly red with his self-important bluster, "a military expansion is the last thing the royal treasury should be spending money on! The castle has barely even had its ground floor rebuilt! The cost of keeping those workers fed and moving is bleeding our coffers white as it is—we can't go paying a bunch of lumbering dullards with weapons, just so they can sit around eating up the people's food!" "Enough!" Zelda snapped, and the word seemed to have a force of its own. Minister Goban was nearly blown back into his seat, face gone suddenly pale as he wondered at the magnitude of authority projected by the delicate, slight shape of the princess. "An extensive analysis of the nation as a whole," Zelda emphasized this, far past the point of exasperation with her ministers' tunnel vision on Castle Town, "shows that we can easily compensate for the cost of reconstruction and a military reorganization, if we simply open up the gates and reclaim the countryside from banditry and lawlessness." "But—but that's the job of the nobility!" Goban protested, finding exactly the wrong argument as he aggravated the princess's other infuriating problem. "And some job they've been doing!" she couldn't suppress a shout, though she reasserted her self-control before she continued. "You speak of men that have allowed Castle Town's west bridge to burn. They allowed roving bands of bullblins to occupy both of the great bridges my grandfather built, and even sat by as the same bullblins built gates and dictated our travel options in our own lands! The dirt-paths we try to disguise as roads are so dangerous, our people are afraid to travel as far as Kakariko Village! Said village was sacked while they twitted their thumbs. Overland trade has been crippled, and foreign merchants have avoided Hyrule for years. With all the damage that's been done, it's a wonder my coffers have anything in them at all." "I—" Goban started in again, and then saw the princess's murderous expression and wisely held his tongue. "Furthermore," Zelda broke the silence harshly, having made a decision she'd been considering for quite a while, "I would shudder to think that your reluctance to divert free space in the budget would have anything to do with the Hyrule businessmen who've been keeping in such close contact with you. I'm sure I was rather clear about my position on subsidizing their petty little mercantilist warfare with royal funds." "Well, now that's just preposterous—" Goban started to bluster in pure desperation, and Zelda stared him down a second time until he fell back limp into his chair. He was certain she couldn't prove he'd done anything treasonous, such as accepting a bribe for example, but not certain enough to keep from sweating through his minister's robe. "Minister Goban, please call in your chief deputy." Zelda's tone held no room for objection, and a somewhat shell-shocked Goban waved at a nearby page. The boy left, and soon enough a tall, incredibly young, brown-haired string-bean of a man walked in. His nervous eyes seemed to try and duck behind his enormous glasses, but he dutifully marched in and took up station behind his boss. "What's your name?" Zelda broke protocol by addressing the young man directly. He was jolted back, and nearly dropped the heavy register he was carrying. When he'd recovered a fumbling grip on his burden, he looked to Goban for guidance. "Don't look at him—I asked you," the princess cut off anything Goban might have said to cue his lackey, and she watched him purple with terrified rage as his subordinate simultaneously paled. "J-Jinkens is my name, Your Majesty!" he stammered it out. It looked like the best he could do was preventing his knees from knocking, as far as his composure went. "And do you know the general state of our finances, along with the mechanisms of our accounting and registry processes?" The question left him blinking. He caught himself before he looked at Goban again, and having nothing else to offer, eventually managed to go with honesty. "Well, Your Majesty, I personally supervise all the junior accountants and have been sole manager of the royal register since I began working." Goban frowned bitterly and looked down, understanding what his underling had admitted, and knowing the princess couldn't help but see it too. It wasn't treason… but still… "Ah, so, in effect," Zelda began, grinning, "You've been doing Minister Goban's job?" "I've been… assisting," the young man responded, terrified to even half-lie to the tiny woman regarding him with such shrewd eyes. He demonstrated admirable, if terribly misplaced loyalty, and Zelda was sure of herself immediately. "Well, your days of assisting are over," she began, with an edge of anger that set him to premature cowering, "Because now you are the new Finance Minister." "I'm… what?" "Don't make me repeat myself, Minister," she said, her voice colored by her smile, "unless you are declining the position?" "N-n-no!" He had a look of shocked happiness. His prospects of promotion had included Minister Goban dying of old age, only moments ago. "Goban, you are dismissed. You may take as long as you like gathering your things, but I don't want to lay eyes on you again. Is that clear?" 'And you should be happy to keep your head,' did not have to be spoken. He'd underestimated her resources, cunning, and seriousness, just as she'd overestimated his ability to shape up his act, and this was the result. That he wasn't six inches shorter was entirely because all the crimes she could prove were those he'd committed in her father's day. That brooked him a pardon, and now they'd see if he'd appreciate her generosity. Goban said nothing, but stood, bowed, and left. A cloud seemed to follow him out of the office. Through her instinct, and a bit of common sense, Zelda knew that wasn't the last she'd hear from a vindictive little shrew like him. She made a mental note to have her local spies continue surveillance on him, and she dearly hoped he wouldn't force her to retire him in a more… 'permanent' fashion. She filed that drearily dark thought, and then she turned to Jenkins. "Your first act as my new finance minister will be to manage a few investments for me." Zelda had returned to business as usual, and it took the young man a moment to catch up. His pay had just tripled, and the only reason he wasn't weeping was because he'd been doing the work that deserved that pay for a year already without hope of recognition, and was now in a state of happiness beyond tears. At length, he sat down, clutching his registry book like a security blanket, and nodded. "Yes," Zelda was mildly annoyed to have to wait, but went on, "I'm concerned about capital for some plans I've been sketching out for the beginning of next year. In brief, I want twenty percent of what's left in the treasury to go into the shipwright industry along the south-eastern Cape of Tonza. Spread it around, though I don't care for the details." "Tonza… yes…" Jinkens looked mortified, and Zelda realized that a little handling would be necessary. "Don't worry, Minister," Zelda said, her tone softening as she concentrated on instilling a bit of confidence. "I know that it's technically illegal for the crown to invest in foreign businesses. After all, I was sitting on my father's knee when Goban, sufficiently bribed by the Castle Town elite, convinced him to sign that into law. I would simply repeal it myself, but I've more important things to do than face down the ire of rich, comfortable leaches. That's why you'll make the investments through a discreet partner I've made several arrangements with previously. His name is Malo Jaggleson, I trust you've heard of him?" "Ah…" Jenkins had a bit of trouble watching his beautiful monarch rattle off such duplicity out of hand. Until two minutes ago, he'd held her in the kind of idealized regard that was never marred by concepts like 'deceitfulness,' and 'remorselessness.' Now he'd scrapped the ideal and replaced it with awe and a bit of fear. This all took some time, but he caught up with the question quickly enough. "Yes! He's the new money that came out of nowhere, right? The dwarf." Zelda debated the value of correcting her newest minister, and rejected it at length. If Malo wanted to stylize himself as a dwarf rather than a staggering child prodigy, she couldn't really care less. The important thing was that he had a head for business that she could rely on not to get caught too sharply on the snag of pure self-interest when she needed financial contacts. Economics was as much a weapon as an army on the stage they played upon, and it was good to know who would be best to do the stabbing when the time came. "If I might ask," Jenkins interrupted Zelda right before she dismissed him, and she almost missed his words as her mind started processing a whole array of different tasks she had ahead of her, "Why ship-builders in Tonza?" Zelda smiled a proud smile, and decided to humor him. "I have several lines of evidence that make me rather certain that a serious hurricane will strike the southwest cape around mid-summer." The statement was calm and level, but Jenkins still couldn't believe he'd heard her right. "But… how is that even possible?" the skeptic in him lead him to tempt royal anger before he could catch himself. He regretted asking immediately, but Zelda just shook her head. "The first clue I had was when my Tonza observer made a comment about the way the old captains were pulling out for the rest of the season, and how he and many others thought it an odd, daft thing to do. He also mentioned the charming color of the water and the direction of recent winds. I recalled something I read about weather predictions, consulted a few history books and almanacs, and trusted that some old captains knew what they were doing." "But still—such certainty?" "Yes, well, then I consulted an almost uniquely Hylian resource. I sent a letter to the son of my grandfather's dear friend, and asked him for help. Prince Ralis spoke to a Zora sea-reader from their oceanic cousins and confirmed everything I suspected quite handsomely." Even now, Jinkens looked dubious, and Zelda lost her patience, waving him away with, "Besides, my information indicates that region is on the opening edge of a boom. Even if the hurricane never materializes, the gain on the investment will still be close to eighteen percent by next year." Dismissed, Jenkins marched away with a wobble in his stride. The kind of sound financial reasoning and realist policies he'd just witnessed were such a change from the familiar that he was in a sort of shock. When he considered the freely-distributed deviousness she'd delegated to him without the slightest hesitation, he almost shivered. The most incredible thing, however, was that this was going to work. He'd heard his share of get-rich-quick schemes, and this was something else entirely. He ducked out of the way to one side as a huge man stomped in the other direction, and then kept his head down as he rushed to get to work at his new job. Zelda's pen was scratching busily away at another missive, her mind split between planning her image for the upcoming garden party and projecting the cost of luring new industries to the area. Both trains of thought and her self-guided pen all screeched to a stop as the herald stepped in and spoke a name she'd come to revile. "David Reanalds, Earl of Ordonia!" he half-shouted, in the way that heralds do. It never failed to infuriate her that the man felt he could intrude without appointment, but she considered it a moderate miracle that he'd managed to miss her finance meeting. Somehow, it was always harder to deal with matters of state after he'd been by. "Your Majesty," the Earl said loudly, as he barged in, "you look lovely as usual." Zelda could imagine he truly thought so, though that line of consideration nauseated her. The Earl was a well-known philanderer, first of all, and she doubted her authority over him made her any less appealing a target of his lusts. Further, his lust for the crown was so obvious, it was a wonder she hadn't caught him openly drooling at her ringless hand. It was a fantasy he could only ever live out through his son, but it was more than enough to disturb Zelda's digestion anyway. There had been many a woman who had much the opposite reaction to the Earl's affections, and with good reason. His son had inherited his looks from the father, and with age and a life of power, those looks had solidified into an image that was at once dashing and majestic. He had black hair, broad shoulders, and the body of a man half his age, all of which combined with his money and influence to keep a procession of maids and lesser noblewomen marching through his bedchambers in grand style. The Lady Reanalds was indifferent to his widespread affections, secure in the knowledge that she'd borne him his first heir and cemented a marriage he'd never be able to afford to annul, not that he'd shown any desire to. In any case, she had her own distractions, and hardly envied him his. In fact, the Lord and Lady were such a pair of like-minded snakes, Zelda couldn't imagine how their first born had wound up as such a lamb. The pit-viper in the gown they'd also produced was much more their breed, their daughter Avril being only a few months younger than Zelda, but already showing her forked tongue. "Why, Earl, whatever brings you here on this fine day?" Zelda lied with every inch of her voice, face and eyes. "Whatever will I have to do to get you to take yourself elsewhere?" she thought, though she dared not to speak it. A man as powerful as Lord Reanalds was dangerous, even to a princess, and at this house she was in his power. "Hmm, yes," he met her greeting with barely-veiled skepticism. He wasn't stupid by any stretch, and doubtless knew her opinion of him without her ever telling him. "When I heard you accepted an invitation to one of the family events… at last…" his arrogant indignation was not subtle, but not overt enough to object to, "I realized that, while working so diligently out here in the country, you might not have had a chance to obtain a new dress for the occasion." Zelda didn't like where this was going, not the least because the insufferable prig didn't bother to keep the victorious look out of his eyes. He clapped once without further explanation, and a team of maids came in with a mass of dazzling fabric on hand. They stretched it out, and Zelda honestly didn't know what to say. It was a deep red gown absolutely covered with fine gold detail embroidery, roughly following the design of her robe of office with allowances for outdoor wear like a raised hem and heavier stitching. Her immediate response to the unexpected gift was quickly tempered by a scream of suspicion from every corner of her mind. She thanked him as she would any noble who'd presented a gift and they exchanged verbal nothings for a while, something she could do without thinking. Zelda's mind had the much more vital task of figuring out what the hell Reanalds thought he was up to, the way he'd been shouting his victory through his eyes. As usual, he'd completely distracted her from running her country, and she hated him for it. West Gate Tunnel, Castle Town, Hyrule Province "Well hello there, Link. It's been a while." The tiny little fellow had to look up only four feet to watch link canter in on Epona, but only by virtue of the five feet of crates he was standing on. Malo hadn't done much growing in the past two months, by Link's measure, but if the small army of laborers hauling goods around were any indication, his business's growth had more than made up for it. "Hey Malo," Link answered the greeting as he leaned over on Epona's saddle, "Looks like business is good." He made a show of sweeping his gaze from the huge clearing house he'd found his friend outside of, all the way down the line of workers trailing from it to the distant city gates. The building was built right up against the mountainside across from the city's west entrance, and seemed quite showy for a warehouse. "I have to say, I didn't think I'd see the day when someone built a business outside the city walls." "Well, we have to lead by example, Link," Malo said, and the way he said it set the stage for his exasperated rant. "This place was supposed to be a traveler's inn and stables. Out here, I could avoid the ridiculous landlord's tax and crowding concerns that keep prices up in the city. I stood to make a killing." "I'm sensing a 'but' here," Link said, and smiled, getting one of Malo's infamous baby-faced glowers for his trouble. "Does it look like I'm using it as an inn?" Malo said, quite dryly. "Those vindictive dogs on the landowner's council are choking off my business. They've spread nasty rumors to fan people's fears about monsters and they bribed the city guard to keep their patrols from coming out this far. I've been using perfect service-industry real estate as storage space ever since." "Seems kind of inconvenient," Link said, watching the workers sweat as they hauled stored goods down the road. It must have been about a mile and a half to Malo's store in the town square from here. "Yes, but the money I pay these stevedores is going a good way to quiet those ridiculous claims that it's unsafe out here. Besides, the monopoly gang in the city has gone to pains to raise the price of operating and drive me out of business. Even with transportation costs, it's actually cheaper to store it out here. In any case, I doubt you came all the way out to Castle Town just to listen to these robber-baron power-plays. Is something wrong back home?" "Actually, no." The question sent Link back to the day before. The goodbyes had been nothing short of tearful, although not a single person had seemed surprised by the news that he was leaving on another journey. Apparently, no matter how he tired to hide or suppress it, everyone had at least somewhat noticed that he wasn't meant to spend his life as an overqualified rancher. Ilia… hadn't shown up. "Although I do have these for you," Link tossed him a wad of letters from his family, "This is a personal call. I've decided to come and collect on my investment." "Oh! So you're—" Malo stopped, giving him the less-glum stare that passed as his 'happy' look. "I always knew you'd never be able to stick it out in Ordon." "So I've been hearing," Link rolled his eyes. Epona pawed the dirt and whinnied, and he gave her a pat to calm her. "Well, you're in luck!" Malo assured him, "The item I dug up for you just came in the other day. Come on around back with me." He lifted a small megaphone out of nowhere and suddenly shouted, "HEY JIM!" A sturdy teenage boy dashed up in no time and made with an exaggerated, but still sincere subservience to the imperious little tycoon. "Link, you leave Epona with Jim, you can be my stable's first customer." 'Around back' turned out to be complicated, what with the building's back wall being flush with the mountainside. Link was really starting to wonder what was up when Malo unlocked a storage-shed looking door in the side of the inn and revealed an unexpected down-stairway. At the bottom of the rough-cut steps, a rather cavernous natural grotto had been converted into a specialty store-room. Malo went rooting through a few boxes, and finally came up with something in a large bundle. "You wouldn't believe the trouble my agent had getting a hold of this, Link," Malo began, in the tone of someone expecting one hell of a thank-you. "Travel time alone made expedience problematic. But with the kind of money I was paying him, you always get results. Here you go: one composite-recurve bow, courtesy of the hill-tribes of the eastern steppes of Chet-Youn." He held it out. "Authorities on the subject claim that this type is the finest bow on the continent, and specialized for horse-archery to boot. Just remember, it's not a long bow, and it's definitely not a magic artifact of a bygone era. You're not going to get the same range that you used to." Link accepted the bundle and unwrapped it without further ado. What he found was incredibly strange to his eyes, but just the sight of it filled him with an inexplicable elation. Something in him recognized a master-crafted weapon, even though he'd never personally seen one of this type before. Of course, he'd had a natural instinct about violent tools since he was old enough to lift them. The bow itself was a mottled affair of wood and other, less obvious things, all layered together in an incredibly intricate design. Unstrung as it was, it looked like someone had tried to make a model of the letter 'W' by gluing together different layers of whatever was on hand. He experimentally bent the two ends where the string would go, and was shocked to find nothing like tension in them. "Hey, what's this now?" Link barked, even as his guts started talking to him again. He immediately knew that it was fine, he was just doing it wrong—but he didn't know how he knew that. It had been the same for everything from paring knives to halberds, though he rarely came across the later before he started traveling. In any case, it was natural that he'd make that particular mistake at first—while the hero's bow had been recurved as well, it was enchanted, and never needed to be unstrung. How would he have known? "You've got it backwards, genius," Malo told him, obviously having been waiting for his opportunity to lord his knowledge over his friend, "that's why it's called 'recurve.'" Link, who'd come to the same conclusion a second ago but didn't feel like arguing with Malo, didn't hesitate to bend the bow the other way, trying to straighten the 'W' into a 'V.' It was hard as hell, and a slow, manic smile spread across Link's face, like a miser who'd just noticed that the rock he'd tripped on was solid gold. "I need a bowstring, Malo, and I mean right now." "Ah, about that," Malo said, digging through another crate, "with the kind of draw-poundage you specified, I figured you'd go through strings like crazy, so I sprang for the good stuff." He made a successful sound and held out a bit of something that looked like piano-wire with loops on the ends. "This bowstring was bespelled to never wear down, and is also supposed to give the arrow a little bit of extra 'kick.' Sure, it was expensive, but you make it up on the working lifespan. Besides, it's still cheaper than paying you what you're due for dividends on that investment capital you gave me." Link didn't have anything to say to that, he just retrieved the bowstring and examined the bow, planning the monumental task of bending it back over itself to be strung. "You know, they say that there's very little in this world trickier than stringing one of those," Malo commented idly as he watched in rapt attention. "It takes special training just for a bow with a draw-poundage in the average range, and yours is way past average." Link said nothing, but placed the bow on the ground with one foot on the grip. Looping one end of the string on its catch, he grabbed the other end and hauled with every muscle in his body. There was a sound of protest from the weapon as its materials were tested for the first time, but it was indeed master-crafted, and probably could have dulled a saw-blade. For an instant, Malo was sure Link would lose his grip before he finished and cut his hand apart on the string, or run out of steam before he looped the other hook, but then there was a twang as the bowstring pulled tight, and Link let go with the slightest sigh. He picked up the bow and held it up to admire his handy-work, and Malo looked stunned. The bow, now inverted, still looked like a 'W,' but was now much flatter and had smoother curves. "Arrows." Link said. He had a dangerous look in his eye, but Malo had seen worse, and took the opportunity to taunt him. He held out some arrows he'd had in the same crate, but managed to snatch them away when an unsuspecting Link reached for them. "Ten for five rupees, only at Malo-mart!" Malo was terribly amused with himself, but Link just reached into his belt and pitched a blue rupee onto the crate Malo was standing on. Malo couldn't help but follow the glinting rupee, and when he looked up again, his hand was quite empty. Link knelt down and stuck the arrow ten-pack point-first into the sandy grotto floor, and before Malo could say a word, he'd readied the first one. "What-?" Malo managed to get out, before Link drew slowly back on the string. The bow made a terrible creaking noise as its arms bent ever further backward, bending along different stress areas than the reversed-curve that had been so difficult for Link to manage, even with his whole body. That was the secret of the bow's revolutionary design, because it lent acres of extra strength to a fairly short weapon. Still, Malo had read the specifications, and that Link could draw that string back further than an inch boggled his mind. Link aimed and fired, then drew and fired two more times almost too quickly for the eye to follow. There was a terrible crack, and Malo looked at the far wall, which was the solid stone of the mountain. The three arrows were in a perfect horizontal row, embedded into the rock. "U-uh-unbelievable!" Malo shouted, skittering across the room to get a closer look. The force of the flying arrows had driven them into the hard rock, the arrows themselves splintering and cracking from the counter-force. "This is… incredible! Link, do you know what that thing would do to a living creature?" "At this range, it would give you a new way to see things behind them," Link said, his bemused smile and distant tone giving him the sense of a man in love. "I'd say it could penetrate quarter-inch steel at a hundred paces, easily. Give an un-armored man a new orifice at three times that." He looked up at his young friend, "Good work!" "Link…" Malo looked grave, "You never cease to amaze me. You know I wanted to have one custom-made for you?" he started a story, obviously referring to the bow, "but then I found out that it takes at least a year, just for the glue to set properly. But they don't usually even make bows in the draw you asked for anyway," 'because most human beings couldn't hope to use such a weapon,' went unsaid. "I was about to give up when my agent heard about one; it had been made as a joke, and was called the 'unusable bow.' Guess what you're holding." "That's great Malo," Link said, obviously not catching the little guy's gravity as he smiled happily at his newest acquisition. This wasn't the weapon of the 'Hero,' it was Link's weapon, all of his own. That's the way he wanted to face the world: owing nothing to the past, free to walk his own path. "Bow's are fantastic, you know that?" "Yeah?," Malo said, intrigued by Link's fascinated expression. He'd seen Link with new 'toys' on more than one occasion, but his enthusiasm for the next tool of violence never seemed to wane. "Well, you know, swords are a weapon of skill. They're intrinsically linked to elite ability, and I can't help but love them the most. A lifetime's learning can make a swordsman unrivaled in combat." Link said, and his voice had an echo of experience Malo usually associated with people three times the warrior's age. "Spears are the opposite—they can make a bunch of talentless mud-booted farmers dangerous with all the training of a long weekend. Various other weapons fall between that range, but a good warbow is the exception." He looked up at Malo, and the pre-pubescent mogul saw a lethal certainty in his eyes. "Arrows don't care how long you spent training with a sword, just like they don't care how much money you spent on your armor or how many bodyguards you have. Whether wielded by a fool or a master, a bow can deal death that evens out most other scales. Of course, in the hands of a master," he didn't bother with modesty here, "a bow is a weapon of assassination, utterly unfair." "Well, that was impressively sanguine," Malo commented, impressed despite himself at the way Link had come to carry himself. Somewhere, somehow, he'd gone from farm boy to hardened veteran. And… there was still more to it than even that, but he couldn't quite describe it. "So, what can you tell me about armor?" Link changed the subject easily, as though he hadn't just expressed his almost eager attitude toward wholesale butchery, "I find myself suddenly in the market." "Armor?" Malo asked, shaking off his nebulous concerns as business came up. "Link, I already told you, with the exception of shields, all forms of quality armament are specialty items in Hyrule. Rusl is the only person I can think of in the whole nation who even knows how to forge a sword. Or at least, a sword worth using. Our own soldiers import their gear from Ghent, or from Careda just north of there. Frankly, it's really sad." "Yeah, but I'm sure a person as well-connected as you could—" "AHHHHH!" a riotous scream suddenly became an entire chorus of screams as a panic bloomed and spread just outside. "Oh what now?" Malo asked. It was only an odd interruption, until the first ground-shaking explosion nearly knocked them both off their feet. "Moblins! Run for you lives!" the shout went up, and there was a terrible noise of panicking people all moving the same direction. "NO!" Malo shouted, freezing in panic as he imagined his investment going up in thoroughly-looted smoke. "More arrows," Link said, plucking what he had left out of the dirt and dashing up the stairs. He had a look of skewed glee that was just plain frightening. "Uh—right! I'm sure I've got some…!" Malo was left to shift through crates in a furor as Link emerged into the sunlight. He'd left his sword and shield on Epona, stranding him with nothing but his new baby and bare hands. Of course, for moblins, that much should be overkill. No sooner had he stepped out of the cellar than did a moblin-trained kargaraok take a snap at his head. The reptilian flying beast would have had him but for some instinct that prompted him to duck, causing the beak to snap down on a few stray hairs and nothing more. As he rolled away, the giant winged stomach pulled out again, flapping its great, leathery wings to hover around ten feet off the ground, eying Link up for another attempt to peck a crater in his skull. Link weathered the gale its wings kicked up and waited for it to strike again. The stupid animal advertised its attack from a mile away, and Link rolled under it, readying an arrow before he came back to his feet. He barely had to aim at this range, striking it in the head and blasting it backward with the leftover force, nailing the big chicken to the wall of Malo's inn by the arrow through its skull. It jerked reflexively as it died, then went limp. The ruckus got the attention of quite a crowd, and Link readied another arrow as he spotted them, and then came to his senses and hurried to duck for cover against the corner wall of the inn when he registered the sheer number of them. They were filthy, murderous bullblins, the mask-wearing plague of the Death Mountain foothills and Gerudo Desert, and all areas they could raid from there. In the brief glance he'd gotten, he counted three war-boars, a boar-drawn wagon, and goddesses only knew how many grunts. Kangaraok blood ran down the side of the building and dripped onto his old work shirt as he listened to the approach of at least three of the looters, probably wondering what happened to their pet air-support. The first one to turn the corner had its windpipe crushed by Link's boot, and before it fell, the one next to it had his knee-cap dislocated by the same foot. The third had just enough time to overcome its surprise and take a slash at Link with its dirk. Link caught its wrist and overpowered it, driving is dirk into the throat of the one clutching its ruined knee. Before it could get its balance back, Link jerked it in the other direction, tripped it into the side wall of the inn, and pinned it face-first to the building with an arrow through its heart. Link looted a scimitar from the one that was still quietly suffocating, executed it with a clean stab, and stuck the blooded blade down the back of his belt. It was time he pressed his advantage. On the far left of the moblin scrum, two of the boar-rider pairs had dismounted to loot liberally amid the goods scattered by fleeing stevedores. One looked up at him in stupid-eyed surprise as he sprinted from behind the inn, spotted his weapon, and opened its mouth to shout a war-cry. A twang of the bow sent an arrow through his chest and right on to points unknown, his misshapen body tumbling through the dusty road, shattered and holed. The partner turned in shock, then raised a shrieking alarm, and the whole jumble erupted like a kicked ant hill. A half-dozen more looters immediately spotted link, as well as the two that had remained mounted on one of the boars to keep watch. With a snort and grunt, a one-ton side of pork hopped into a frenzied charge at its master's urging, closing the short distance between them and Link in a few thundering bounds. Link waited until point-blank range, and then holed the boar handler's chest, the arrow going right through and lodging in the skull of the passenger behind him before it even managed to ready its bow. The two corpses rode on as Link dove away from the frenzied boar, which charged unguided into the cliff wall. You could hear the sickening crunch of its skull shattering all the way at the distant city walls. By then, he could feel rather than see the arrows sighting in on him from those crude little moblin bows, and he scrambled for cover behind a tumbled crate stack on the opposite side of the road from the inn, black arrows peppering his tracks. The other two boar-riders used the distraction caused by their friends to mount up and wheel their steed around. Escape was on their minds, and it was likely they were shouting much the same to the nearby cart-drover in their filthy, incomprehensible language. Glancing out of his cover, Link saw the passenger securing their loot with one hand as it pulled out a distinctive-looking sack with the other, preparing to cover the escape. Link cracked its head open with an arrow that blew it out of its seat, but not before it had opened the sack. Out tumbled half-a-dozen shiny black spheres and a prominent hissing sound filled the air. Bombs. He'd dropped bombs. Link didn't stop to think, he nailed the first sphere with an arrow before it hit the ground, and the world flashed with hard light. Instantly, a wall of air swept up and slapped Link like a jealous lover, kicking him over into a tumble before he could even think about jumping back into the nearby cover. There was a vague sense of glass shattering and wood flying asunder, and then the world was quiet again. Link sat up, shedding road dust like snow from his head and arms, and surveyed the carnage, eyes sharp for survivors. Malo's inn was still standing, although it would need new windows. About half of everything that had been lying in the street was gone, but that was fine, because so were the bullblins. The explosion had taken out the riders, scattered the looters, and blown huge splinters of their cart all the way up onto the cliffs above. All that was left was a huge black scorch mark, one smoking hoof, and about three thousand tiny pork cutlets, with odd bits of bone and larger hunks of carcass distributed pretty liberally around. The last boar, dumb beast that it was, had been stunned stiff by the flash and the bang, and tilted over into an unconscious heap as Link watched. Link looked down and considered his one remaining arrow as he scraped himself up and walked idly toward ground zero. "GRAH!" Link sidestepped without breaking stride as a Bullblin went for his kidneys with a dagger from its hiding place behind the same crates he'd used. As it skidded by off balance, he grabbed it in a chokehold with his free hand and broke its neck one-handed. Stupid creatures, to shout before a sneak attack like that. Not that a smarter ambush would have worked either, with the deadly song that sang through Link's veins. This combat was like a drug, and the months of withdrawal he'd suffered in Ordon only made it that much sweeter to be back. The snap had been messy, incomplete, and the little devil twitched and jerked at Link's feet. So he shot it. The arrow went through its chest and buried halfway into the ground beneath it, but at least the bullblin stopped moving. For a long moment, there was no sound but the wind. The silence was like the time between two ticks of a clock, and Link felt it stretch out for a brief eternity. It was broken when a wagon wheel clattered to the ground and bounced to a loud, rolling stop, having only just finished its steep ballistic journey after the explosion. With the spell of calm broken, Link could finally hear the cheering. From the direction of Castle Town, a great, distant roar filled the air and echoed across the bridge to the rocky cliffs above Malo's inn. Link turned back and saw people lining every parapet, with late-going refugees of the attack standing on the bridge adding their own voices to the uproar of adulation. A muscle ticked in Link's face, and he turned away from the lot of them. In front of him, what was left of the scavengers after the bomb shrapnel was piecing itself together, and many considered Link with murderous, beady little eyes. But then they looked again. He was not physically impressive, but somehow managed to cast a shadow that blotted out the light. With him as the lens, the cheers sweeping down from the city were like the roar of the ocean, a great wave cresting up, preparing to slam down and crush them. They were shortly trembling, and then Link drew the scimitar he'd acquired. The last of the bullblins was running for its life before Link had taken his first step, and he spat in disgust at their cowardice. The least they could do was stand and face the consequences of the murder and theft they sowed so freely. Cursing his lack of ammunition, he chucked the scimitar at the slowest runner, the unbalanced weapon twirling and wobbling in flight, but still managing to clock his target on the skull, if only hilt-first. Around then, Malo showed up, bundle of arrows in hand, baby face unreadable as he surveyed the damage and the cheering crowds. People were rushing up, and Link didn't really want to deal with that. "Malo." Link got his little friend's attention. "One hundred arrows, sixty bombs, and dry provisions for three weeks. Have 'em all at the fountain outside the south exit tonight." "But—" "Try to dig up some armor too—something light. I want the best mix of durability and mobility you can find, you know my sizes." "But Link—" "Here's an advance!" Link shouted, already running toward the stables. He tossed a small pouch he'd pulled from his belt, and as it hit the ground, one of the several orange rupees inside spilled out. "Thanks again for the bow, man!" "But Link, what about—" Malo stopped himself this time, because Link was already gone and away. The next moment, he was thundering toward the west tunnel on Epona, leaving the city and its advancing horde of amazed bystanders in the dust. Malo huffed, and then retrieved and counted the rupees. First things first. Only then did he turn around to meet the wave of rubberneckers and returning stevedores. He quickly organized a clean-up, declining to comment on anything to anyone, and thought about what he'd have to do to get what Link asked for. In classic Link style, the jerk had saved his skin yet again, and didn't even wait around for a thank-you. West Hyrule Field, Hyrule Province When he was safely out into the wilderness, Link reigned Epona back and let her go off at her own pace. The gentle rocking motion was soothing to a boy who'd grown up in a saddle, and it helped him think. This was important, because, in his own estimation, he had much to think about. He got the same pensive feeling every time he eluded people who might ask questions he wasn't sure he could answer. Releasing the reigns despite the turbulence of Epona's run, he stared at the back of his left hand, his mind's eye superimposing the image of the Triforce of Courage burned into his memory during the duel with Gannondorf. No one had ever told him much about the thing—just as no one had ever bothered to give him half an explanation about any part of that 'fated journey.' Midna had led him around by the nose, and he'd simply been expected to 'make with the heroism.' Well that was all well and good—it had been enough to save Hyrule, after all—but it left him in a hell of a lurch now. Link's questions were manifold. Had he been chosen because he already had the qualities the Triforce appreciated, or was his entire ability a product of this invasive force twined into his soul? What about his protective instinct, or his personality? Just how much were these impulses he'd been feeling truly altering the path of his free will? And of course, how far would it all go? What the hell had he done to Ilia? He hadn't even noticed how he'd been re-formed until he'd found he could never again fit into his old life, but now that he had noticed, he realized he couldn't trust any aspect of his own personality to be.. well… his. Had he really always been as gung-ho about combat as he was today, and as callous with life? He'd never faced these kinds of choices as a farm hand, and so he was forever bound to knowing himself only as a divinely-invested warrior in these situations. It gave him very little to go on when he tried to decide if he should be worried about his own behavior of late. Rusl said he'd seen Link's restlessness coming for years—what if he'd always been heading down this path, and the Triforce simply chose him as a vessel it would have to do the least work empowering? He just didn't know, and his own ignorance was infuriating. Almost without realizing it, his hand found its way to the letter he'd gotten from the Royal Administration. As simple as that, Link remembered that there was at least one person who could give him some answers. He doubted she'd truck many questions from a guy who'd have to lie on his belly to be any further from her on the social spectrum, but perhaps if he humored her request for help, she'd give him what answers she had. The brief words he'd had with her during their collusion of fate had impressed him with her generosity, so it wasn't impossible. Earlier he'd actually half-decided to show up, just to blow her off. He'd done his time for princess and country, and now his path should be his own. He was sure he could find ways to improve Hyrule without being a lapdog of the state, and so use his every talent to indirectly aid Ordon as Rusl had suggested. Now that he thought about it again, he wasn't so sure he'd get a choice here, not if he wanted those answers. In any case, his mind was made up, and he wheeled Epona around to the southeast as he began the afternoon-long journey of meeting up with Malo again. If he was going to meet royalty, he wanted to be good and ready. Reanalds Mansion, Hyrule Province Zelda sat back in her wonderfully comfortable chair and stared at her door. At least, her eyes stared at where her door would be, if she could see it in the pitch black of her darkened office. Her actual attention was wrapped up in the knotted mess of her many separate avenues of thought, their simultaneous operation having gotten out of hand again. Believe it or not, it was difficult to manage when you suddenly had three independent reasoning centers, and she hadn't quite gotten the hang of it. Because of her failure, even with all the lights out and guard-enforced silence all around her, she was still only about ten seconds from another crushing migraine in the series she'd encountered since her mind had started to expand. Each headache was worst than the last, and the most recent one had brought her to her knees, a breath from unconsciousness. She'd never asked to have a brain with enough loops in it to allow for pretzel twists, and as she strove to stave off the impending agony, she got rather petulant about it. It wasn't fair. She hadn't chosen to be born the princess, and now she was caged into a world of never-ending toil. She couldn't help it, her mind never wanted to stop working, and neither would her heart let her give less than her all for the country. But… her all had become something huge, and the strain of maintaining it… enormous. Locked away in private, no one around to whom she had to impress with regal invulnerability, the temptation to cry out some of her tension was incredibly strong, and she didn't know if she could handle that right now. It was all just proof that even though her wits seemed to go on forever lately, she could still find their end when things got bad. Reanalds' plotting left her unable to concentrate, and soon idle in the throes of unfocused worry. It was always worst when she was idle. As long as she had something to work on, she could keep her brain chugging merrily away and ignore the many things in herself that had been disturbing her. When she had no task, she had no distraction from the things she didn't want to face. The problem with being as smart as she was getting was that she couldn't help but notice and quantify the changes overtaking her, nor truly ignore how chillingly far from normal they were taking her. Forget about taking solace in denial—only distraction worked, even temporarily. When it got to the point where she was using logic theory and mathematics to define how far she'd digressed from human, she fell into a mood like the one gripping her now. This near-despair was what happened to her when all of her shiny new faculties got stuck on a problem she lacked the data to solve, and began to sail through loops of speculation and theory that quickly became knotted cranial agony. For her, the classic problem question, the one that had trapped her into knotting loops, was: what is happening to me? About the only thing she knew with any confidence was the source, and though she'd exhausted every resource at her disposal, she'd been able to do little with that particular lead. After centuries on end, solid records were hard to come by, and the many oral traditions were vague and self-evidently unreliable. It rankled her that even with all the authority and influence of the crown, she still couldn't find out much more about her peoples' deities and their works than what was available to the average person. It was enough to put 'cultural renaissance' a ways down on her list of things to do, all by itself. She amused herself for a moment with the thought of creating the post of 'royal theological archeologist.' "Your Majesty?" The door creaked open, letting in an eye-watering beam of light, and a page whispered into the darkness. He was clearly upset to be the one to interrupt her rest. "Minister Auru is here to see you." "Is it urgent?" Zelda asked, wincing at the way the words vibrated her super-sensitized skull. "I believe I may be able to help, Your Majesty," Auru spoke into the darkness as he stepped in behind the page and ushered him out. He shut the door and plunged the room back into safe, cool blackness. "I bring news." "News? News is good," Zelda perked up immediately at the promise that someone would feed her bottomless appetite for new data. "I take it my spies have reported in?" "That and more, though I'll leave it for later." Auru's voice smiled, and Zelda noted in idle bemusement that she could precisely locate him in the darkness by tracking the differences in air currents caused by his breathing. Odd, the things her head could get up to, when she dared to leave it to its own devices. "For the moment, I believe I might have an idea about pulling you out of this funk. You see, it's occurred to me that these headaches never bother you while you are sufficiently occupied with one subject or another." "Oh, you noticed that, did you?" Zelda would probably have erupted with suspicion if it had been anyone but Auru to divine the nature of her weakness. As it was, she was almost pleased to have another opinion. She never knew if she could trust hers anymore. "Quite so, yes," Auru said again, as he took a seat opposite from her, feeling around blindly in the darkness until he found the chair. "I just wanted to take this opportunity to say: the landed gentry are planning to force you to sign a bill of noble's rights." "WHAT?" Zelda leapt up out of her chair and slammed both palms on her desk, a flash of a spell igniting every candle in the room and flooding them with a sudden bright light. "Heads will roll!" she spoke with a cold, bloody assurance. "I was lying," Auru told her, as a sort of subdued, geriatric version of 'NOT!' Zelda stalled immediately, the simultaneous planning of assassinations, land seizures, and the public relations campaign that would stave off civil unrest all going to pieces behind her eyes. She immediately realized what he'd done, and she was quite cross. "That was a dirty trick," She informed him calmly as she took her seat again. "And like all the best dirty tricks, it worked beautifully," Auru said, sensing her annoyance and smiling as he saw it tempered by a grudging gratitude. "How's you're head?" "Hmph… better," Zelda admitted. Part of her mind continued to formulate a contingency plan for the mass rebellion of her nobles, if not quite as furiously as before. Another devised terrible punishments to visit upon tricky old ministers. "Do you actually think the nobles might band together and seize power?" Zelda asked, interested in his opinion. At this time, decentralizing Hyrule's leadership into the hands of the short-sighted was perhaps the worst thing that could happen if they wanted to survive as a sovereign state. In the same breath, her ability to counter such a move might never be lower than it was now. "It is possible, with men like our Earl and the merchant elite in Castle Town," Auru allowed, "but not likely. Hyrule's monarchy is dearly loved, and you in particular are a national treasure. Any move against you would have to be incredibly discreet, lest even the most humble farm-hand rise up and 'ask' their 'betters' what they think they're doing. I don't believe any of the disloyal lords are terribly well acquainted with subtlety." Zelda nodded, agreeing with him as she remembered Reanalds' bragging eyes. "I sometimes feel," She sighed, looking contemplative, "that it would be safer to be feared." "Oh?" Auru perked up, startled, "that's an odd thing to say." "The love of my people is certainly flattering," Zelda continued, knowing it would be impossible to patronize the old scholar by explaining her reasons, "and I have no intention other than to strive for all my people's happiness and safety, but filthy men too often take such as a sign of weakness. Somehow, they assume that they can act against me without reprisal because I don't openly abuse those beneath me. If I were feared as a dangerous tyrant, at least it would discourage such rebellious men from the delusion that I'll hesitate to deal harshly with them." "Should I take this as a statement of your intent to change policy?" Auru asked, feigning diffidence. In truth, he was on tenterhooks as he watched the princess think, apparently on the edge of declaring heavy-handed dictatorship. She was good in a bone-deep way that could never be shaken, but the force augmenting her meteoric leadership was an ice cold slave of logic. He could already see it in her policies—from her frequent use of her grandfather's spy network to her blithe disregard for the few standing regulations on royal power. There was no injustice too large to perpetrate, if that was what it took. Nothing. Of course, either way would lead to the security and strengthening of Hyrule, it was just that one path had the trail of corpses, and the other was damn close to impossible. "Not yet," Zelda said, honestly as far as he could tell. "There's no call to rush out 'the stick' as long as 'the carrot' alone still keeps the children in line. Time enough for that if things ever do go bad. Anyway, I believe you had more news for me?" "Very well then, on to the next order of business." Auru found himself glad to change the subject. In a way, he was relieved that she seemed to have a stomach for the nasty side of power, because it was a sad, utter necessity for a strong ruler. He just didn't want to see the beautiful child of his beautiful queen fall to the trappings of convenience inherent to tyranny. "Your spies have made great progress on investigating the Earl's gift." "Do tell," Zelda commanded. Auru did. Zelda colored, first with embarrassment, and then with fury. When she'd finished exhausting her lengthy vocabulary of critical words upon the filthy man's entire lineage, she set her mind to cooking up a counter-plot. She'd quite forgotten about Auru. The old minister occupied himself by watching the barely perceptible aura of energy crackle around his monarch's petite silhouette. He was certain that she had no idea what she looked like when she really focused her mind and pushed it to its limit, and equally certain that she was clueless to how much he lived to see it. Something about that energy spoke to him, attracting him like a moth to a candle flame. He was too much aware of his own age to dream that it was a sexual attraction, but it was strikingly similar. The feeling completely circumvented his reason, exactly the way it had every other time he'd noticed the aura since that first time only days ago. As it weighed more and more upon his mind, he probed a few trustworthy people, such as Ashei and a few of the pages, and quickly discovered it was not a phenomenon the others had noticed. As far as he knew, he was the only one who could see it. There was little doubt in his mind that it was a manifestation of the Triforce, but what kind? Why him? Zelda's eyes saw nothing when she introverted to fully coordinate her mind, and Auru couldn't resist the opportunity to stare into them while she wouldn't notice. The crystal pools were the wellsprings from which her fulminating aura emerged, and when he gazed into them, they seemed to suck him in. Auru was overcome by the feeling that he was gazing out onto a plain that went on for miles, expanding into the horizon. That was when the vision came. A scepter and crown over the Triforce: the symbol of the royal family since time immemorial. The image filled his mind, and his heart was filled with a simple, shining knowledge. He immediately understood a history of service that reached back a thousand lifetimes through countless women, each bound to serve as Hyrule's guiding light; protector of the land, the people, but most importantly, of the legacy bequeathed by the goddesses at genesis. It was a harrowing experience that left him feeling old and terrified, which was nothing compared to how he would feel when he finally discovered the Triforce symbol carved into the flesh over his heart in glowing gold lines. "I think I've got it—Auru?" Zelda looked up to find him staring at her with an odd look on his face, and he hurried to break into geriatric coughing. For the moment, she was none the wiser to what had just happened, her blossoming shrewdness containing a blind spot for her trusted friends. Somehow, Auru managed to keep his advice flowing until he could excuse himself without arousing concern. As soon as he was out of eyeshot, he nearly collapsed, and shivered all the way back to his bed. Something had just happened, though he doubted he would ever know just what. She was already sensitive about the abilities she was developing; he would not concern the princess with this on top of the rest. Especially not when she would shortly be confronted with the Hero, and all the new tactical considerations his arrival would entail. As he imagined the endless progression of other things she'd soon face with her unique gifts, considering that she was almost certainly the only one who could guide them through it all successfully, Auru wondered if he'd ever be willing to burden her with it. Not for the first time, he reaffirmed his pledge to guard her and teach her, the pledge he'd made to her mother so long ago. This was an era that was being defined, however indirectly, by the hands of the gods and goddesses themselves. He was just an old man, but if he could serve Hyrule and its golden children, he would dedicate himself to his last breath. But first… he needed some sleep. Category:Zelda Category:The Golden Power Category:The Golden Power Book One